There has been a pattern in recent Hollywood dramas.
Hamnet frames playwriting as a vessel to endure the weight of a mother’s grief. Is This Thing On? imagines stand-up comedy as a cathartic path of rediscovery for its protagonist. Or take Netflix’s newest film Jay Kelly; an aging actor who engages with the craft of acting to reconcile with regret.
The clear pattern here is their observations on the intersection between art and emotions. The reckoning of one’s identity through creative means. Whether it be acting in front of a crowd, or being a member of the audience, art serves as a transcendent healing power.
Joachim Trier’s 2025 film Sentimental Value contributes to this trend. The Oscar-contender centres around the family dynamic between a father and his two daughters. Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgard) is a celebrated Swedish filmmaker who has remained absent from his actress daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) and her younger sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).
Their troubled childhood made Nora conditioned to a certain loneliness; one that has devolved into a struggle with depression. Agnes is in a healthier place in life by comparison; a fulfilling job as an academic and having a family of her own. Yet, she remains the middle-person in the dynamic, the ‘glue’ to her father and sister. She has a clearer understanding of Gustav but knows his estrangement hurts Nora the most in wake of her sadness. The two have had to then make up for their father’s absence by being each other’s emotional support; a rich bond made possible through sisterhood.
Conflict arises when Gustav returns to their lives in the hopes of Nora taking a leading role in his upcoming film. She immediately rejects the offer, causing him to pivot and cast the buzzy American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning). While initially keen on collaborating with a respected auteur, Rachel gradually realises that there is a personal significance to Gustav’s film; one that positions her as an emotional outsider to the material by default.
Following this is the pivotal scene of Rachel meeting Nora for the first time, intending to seek a better understanding of their family history. She details the foundations to Gustav’s script; a female protagonist drenched in an indescribable sadness, made familiar to an overwhelming loneliness that dominates her home. Unknowing to Rachel, Nora realises what her father’s film is actually about. It is about her. A filmmaker’s attempt to heal the trauma that he had inflicted onto his daughter; channelling unresolved pain through an artform.
Sentimental Value also frequently returns to imagery of the characters’ childhood home; the house that serves as the central influence and location to Gustav’s newest film. A narrator’s voice takes us through pivotal moments associated with the house. Whether it be the two sisters eavesdropping on their parents fighting, or how it is that exact same location where Gustav’s own mother had passed away in, the family home symbolises an emotional archive of generational trauma. The quietness felt in rooms and stagnant interior mirrors Nora’s own mental state. As the walls begin to deteriorate, so does the relationship between the family. By making the house pivotal to Gustav’s screenplay, it creates a meta-lens for the characters to navigate their emotions; whether to remain tied to the past or to move forward. Very much the signifier to how filmmaking is Gustav’s personal way of making amends for his fatherly mistakes.
I cannot directly relate to father-daughter dynamics, nor do I have any sisters. But I saw a lot of myself in the wider subject matter of Sentimental Value.
A film about what it means to realise the true weight of your world much later than you should have. The burden you quietly carry when you are unable to say or do the right thing; turbulent feelings either left unspoken or projected in behaviour. When the easiest option is to simply tell how we feel, yet it is the choice that seems the most difficult to do. Sentimental Value hurts in how it breaks your heart open with the same deep sadness actively felt by our characters. But that same hurt is what can leave you with a new outlook on life.
As Nora finally decides to read her father’s screenplay in the film’s penultimate scene, she is made capable of navigating her unspoken resentment. A reconciliation of past emotional strands. Trier’s own film is therapeutic the same way in which Gustav’s script attempts to cure the cruel childhoods that his daughters had to endure. A means to give voice to the pain that had been once impossible to define.
Before the credits roll, we see Nora performing an emotional scene from her father’s film, with Gustav watching from afar. His film is finally being brought to life. The camera slowly pulls back to reveal that the film set they are currently on resembles the family home that is so deeply ingrained in their history. The two share a silent exchange of looks; a signifier for a fresh start to their relationship. Neither their respective struggles with depression, nor the pains of the past, are erased. They can never be. But what it does do is finally bridge their emotional distance; an achievement made possible through the transcendent power of cinema.
By engaging with the sentimental value of art as a healing force, Trier invites us to do the same for ourselves.
